Ooshma Garg: What are some of the challenges you face as the CEO of your startup?

TL;DR

Ooshma Garg contrasts early-stage startup highs (constant innovation, maker time) with lows (no customers, sleeping at office). As CEO, her days are now meeting-heavy and she must fight for strategic time. She concludes that caring deeply about customers and their experience long-term is what ultimately drives revenue.

Key insights

• Early startup "maker time" is precious and enables constant innovation, but CEO role eventually shifts to a schedule dominated by meetings and dinners, requiring deliberate effort to reclaim strategic
• The emotional low of early days is when nobody cares about the startup and customer count is near zero; her coping mechanism was to lay on the floor with blank paper and ask "what's next."
• A major high in a later stage is encountering customers organically ("in the wild") – that recognition makes her day.